Interview: Dave Kilminster - Rock Revisited

“I thought it was about time I
stopped helping other people with
their careers and got on with mine,” laughs
Dave Kilminster about the motivation
behind his 2007 debut album, Scarlet.
After playing the role of über-sideman to
a list of rock royalty that includes John
Wetton, Keith Emerson, and most notably
Roger Waters, Kilminster stepped
out on his own with a tight collection of
tuneful originals. During a break from
Waters’ seemingly never-ending touring
production of The Wall, Kilminster decided
to revisit Scarlet. “When I finally got
time to go back and look at it, I realized
it deserved a lot more. So I went back in
the studio and had a fiddle with it with a
good friend of mine, Jamie Humphries,
who is a great guitarist, and we ended up
with The Director’s Cut.”

Sonically, the original version was
missing something. The drum
sound didn’t match Kilminster’s
vision, and that led him to strip
away some unessential elements
and make the album sound more
focused. “It was almost like there
was a great sounding album
underneath all this crap on top
of it,” says Kilminster. “When I
took the recording to Jamie, he
made the drums sound like they
should have in the first place.
Then I did a few extra vocal
harmonies. We were rushed in
those initial sessions and I wasn’t
particularly confident about singing,
but this time Jamie just told
me to go for it.”

The entire Scarlet experience
gave Kilminster what ended up as
a grad school education in following
your creative muse and not
settling for a lackluster sound in
the final product. “You learn a lot
by just throwing yourself in the
deep end and that’s what I did,”
recalls Kilminster. “Everything
just took a little longer than I
wanted it to.”

But not everything about
Scarlet was a total miss. Very early
on in the process, after a day of
jamming in preparation for a
Keith Emerson tour, Kilminster
decided to skip the traditional
building-block method of recording
an album and focus instead
on capturing the trio’s live feel. “I
listened to that recording when I
was going home and realized this
is what’s missing—three people
playing together live.”

That in-the-room-energy permeates
The Director’s Cut, from
the slinky funk-rock groove of
“Static” to the Zep-meets-power-pop
feel of “Liar, Liar.” The
latter features some of the most
fluid, shred-tastic soloing that
Kilminster has ever done.

“I’m not a big fan of effects on overdriven sounds. When I do the ‘Comfortably Numb’ solo with Roger, I put on this
chorus to try and make it sound a bit more like the record, and I always hate doing it,” says Kilminster. Photo by
Ronald Santerre

Even though the production
might have gotten a little out of
hand, Kilminster’s guitar rig was
about as simple as you can get.
His main tools were a black ’74
Fender Telecaster and a limited
edition Vox AC30.

“I wasn’t quite sure what we
were going for—maybe I was still
in my Jeff Buckley phase, to be
honest,” says Kilminster. “Later
when I went back, I decided
that the clean bits weren’t clean
enough and the overdriven bits
weren’t heavy enough.”

That desire for more dynamics
led Kilminster to shun many
effects—especially for his dirtier
sounds. “I’m not a big fan of
effects on overdriven sounds.
When I do the ‘Comfortably
Numb’ solo with Roger, I put on
this chorus to try and make it
sound a bit more like the record
and I always hate adding it.”

Kilminster’s usual recipe for
stellar tone involves a great guitar
and a great amp. Even a delay
doesn’t interest him. “The first
time I ever used a delay on a guitar
solo was when I started playing
with Roger. It wasn’t something I
particularly wanted to do.”

With the entire Scarlet experience
behind him, Kilminster
began working on his next solo
album this past December, but
the opportunity to participate
in the “12-12-12” Hurricane
Sandy benefit at Madison Square
Garden conflicted with his recording
dates. While preparing for his
new solo project, Kilminster took
some radical steps to reinvigorate
his writing and playing.

“Why is it that most guitarists
write their best material in their
early-to-mid 20s? I wonder if it’s
to do with the fact that you are
still learning the instrument. You’re
still messing around and not really
quite sure what you are doing and
you stumble across these great
sounding things. How could I
unlearn the guitar quickly?”

The notion of “unlearning”
the guitar inspired Kilminster to
explore an entirely new tuning.
After a few tweaks of the tuning
pegs, he landed on C–G–D–
G–A–D, a tuning firmly in the
DADGAD family, but with some
added low-end thump.

“I just thought this was so
exciting to come up with a tuning
where I had no idea what I
was doing,” says Kilminster. The
original idea was to use this new
discovery for the main rhythm
parts, but then move over to
the comfortable surroundings of
standard tuning for the solos, but
Kilminster hasn’t yet made the
final decision. “I could be totally
shooting myself in the foot with
this. Do I really want to relearn
all my modes, scales, and arpeggio
shapes?”

With a summer European
tour with Roger Waters on the
books, Kilminster is hoping to not
only finish a new solo album, but
also pair up with master shredder
Guthrie Govan for a duo
album that will certainly grab the
attention of guitar nerds on both
sides of the Atlantic. “I’ve actually
written some tunes for that
because I really, really, really want
to do it,” he says. “Hopefully, if
time permits, we could be in the
studio around October. When we
play together there’s this kind of
ESP thing that happens and it’s so
much fun. It needs to get down on
vinyl, or plastic, or whatever.”

Since attending a Dave Matthews Band concert as a teenager, Jason has been into all things guitar. An Iowa native, Jason has degrees in Music Business from Minnesota State-Mankato and Jazz Pedagogy from the University of Northern Iowa. Since then, he has spent time doing everything from promotion at an indie music label to organizing guitar workshops all over the country. Currently, Jason lives with his wife, son, and daughter in Cedar Rapids, Iowa.

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